How to Use Impact Data to Improve Your Nonprofit Programs

We’ve all heard the phrase “data-driven decision-making,” but connecting this concept to the day-to-day activities of nonprofit program implementation poses a challenge. Research has determined that, though nonprofits collect data from a variety of sources, they often struggle to identify the most meaningful information and incorporate it effectively into their processes. 

Here’s an overview of some of the benefits of collecting, analyzing and using impact data to measure, communicate and make decisions about your programs.

Improving Program Outcomes

In the nonprofit world, program evaluation has become a standard part of project implementation. Improving your nonprofit’s programmatic outcomes over time requires an understanding of the influence that those programs have had on your beneficiaries or cause. Nonprofits can gain this understanding through well-rounded monitoring, evaluation and learning processes, which collect relevant information to determine if their efforts are having the impact they want. 

Within your nonprofit’s monitoring, evaluation and learning framework, impact data serves as the top of the pyramid. It focuses less on the metrics that quantify the process and more on how the results of your program can be measured, such as:

• Socio-cultural changes in the community.
• Behavioral changes due to awareness or education.
• Innovations in technology or service provision.

Collecting and using impact data allows you to test the assumptions underlying your theory of change, as well as determine which program activities provide the highest return on investment. If you know which programs are most effective, you can focus more time and effort on them. Conversely, you can make changes to the programs that are not providing the expected results. 

For example, the nonprofit Real Options for City Kids provides support to underserved children in San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley area. The organization’s impact data showed an increase in behavior incidents immediately following lunch and recess. Because the nonprofit staff saw this early in the school year, it prioritized placing more staff on lunch and recess, and providing more support during transition periods, which led to an 85% reduction in behavior incidents.

Securing Grants and Ensuring Grant Compliance

Collecting impact data can improve your nonprofit programs by increasing your chances of securing critical funding from grantmakers. Grants can be a helpful supplement to your program services and donation revenue. The Urban Institute found that government funding can make up 20% to 30% of annual revenue, while 15% of annual revenue comes from foundation and corporate grants. Many grant applications request evaluation plans, how you intend to measure the success of the project and its impact, as well as impact reports to demonstrate prior achievements. Sharing these types of impact data helps to tangibly demonstrate the success you've had to date, illustrate how you measure progress and learn from your results, and reinforce your capacity to deliver meaningful impact.

Additionally, these funders frequently require reporting on an ongoing basis. In order to comply with the terms of the grant, your nonprofit will need to track impact data to report back to the funder. The cycle of reporting varies from organization to organization, but your programs team will use impact data to keep funders informed about the outcomes of your efforts, as well as provide learning and improvement opportunities for your programs. 

Clean and compelling impact data creates a virtuous cycle for your nonprofit: If you can demonstrate that your programming has a measurable impact, you can secure more funding to continue your work. If you secure more funding, you’ll continue to collect and measure impact data from your successful efforts. Then you’ll be able to use the data from these projects to secure more funding in the future. 

Strengthening Marketing and Storytelling

Understanding the effect of your programs beyond anecdotal evidence supports your programming efforts by increasing the power of your marketing. The best storytelling combines personal narratives with the inarguable utility of quantitative results, and impact data is critical for this process. 

This information can help expand your community of supporters, strengthen your annual reports, and communicate your impact to potential funders and others in your community. You can bring more visibility to your cause, your programming and your nonprofit as a whole. 

Publishing information about your nonprofit’s efforts also builds trust and provides transparency into your work. Current supporters want to know how their donations have made a difference in their communities, and future supporters want to know that their contributions will have a tangible impact. 

Your nonprofit’s impact data can be a force multiplier for your programming efforts if you can harness it effectively. This evidence makes data-driven decision-making less of a nebulous concept and more of a useful strategy. Strengthening individual programs, securing more funding, and effectively telling the story of your nonprofit can all be achieved by having an intentional strategy behind what data you capture and how you leverage it.

The preceding content was provided by a contributor unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of NonProfit PRO.